! 

The Christian and 
Amusements 


Is dancing sinful? 

Is card-playing wrong ? 

Is theater-going harmful? 


William Edward Biederwolf 



The Glad Tidings Publishing Co. 

602 Lakeside Building Chicago, Ill. 







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THE CHRISTIAN 
and AMUSEMENTS 


Is dancing sinful? 

Is card-playing wrong? 
Is theater-going harmful? 


By 

WILLIAM EDWARD BIEDERWOLF 

* 


1909 

The Glad Tidings Publishing Go. 
602 Lakeside Building Chicago, Ill. 





Copyright 

The Winona Publishing Company 
1909 


W. E. Bikdbrwolf, Owner of Copyright 


~"R.' V3FET. ri0,- 

COPYRIGHT OFflQE 

>a 29.-3 

* • 


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THE CHRISTIAN 
and AMUSEMENTS 



HIS is not a pleasant task I am about to 


perform. How certainly do I wish there 


were no occasion for an address such as 


I am now going to deliver. I assure you there¬ 
fore it is more from necessity than from choice 
that I am to speak upon the subject announced 
for this service. That subject is the subject 
of Amusements and the Christian’s relation to 
them. I recognize the fact that in speaking 
upon the theater, the cards and the dance I 
am dealing with what are beyond question the 
three greatest sources of amusement among the 
American people and I know that your prejudices 
are very apt to be very strong one way or the other. 

I am not going to argue with you. I am simply 
going to tell you some things I know to be true and 
trust to your own enlightened Christian judgment, 
your own high sense of honor and your own fine 
sense of distinction between what is delicate and 
refined and modest and what is indelicate and 
coarse and suggestive to decide for yourself, regard¬ 
less of what anyone else thinks, what your future 
position concerning these things is to be. 

I cannot understand how any right thinking per¬ 
son can possibly disagree with me in the position 
which the facts I aril about to set forth have con- 




THE CHRISTIAN 


strained me to take. And yet I dare hardly hope 
that every one will acknowledge as much because 
I know how strong your prejudices are. Some of 
you have come here to-night and have said to your¬ 
self and doubtless to others, “I’d like to see the 
preacher convince me that these things are wrong.” 
Well, he won’t, for you know that little couplet “A 
man convinced against his will is of the same 
opinion still,” but if any number or even one shall 
this day be true to his or her better self and the 
Spirit of God and begin to do the will of God, I 
shall be repaid for ail it means to me to speak to 
you at this time. 

In the very beginning I wish to lay down two 
great principles as a foundation upon which to 
build. 

First. The principle of sacrifice must be put into 
practice in every life that hopes to be highly success¬ 
ful. This is true of the merchant; it is true of the 
professional man; it is true of the student and it is 
true of the Christian. 

The heights by great men reached and kept, 

Were not attained by sudden flight; 

But they, while their companions slept, 

Were toiling upwards in the night. 

And the same thing is true in Christian experi¬ 
ence. You will remember the poet told us some¬ 
thing about “ men rising on stepping stones of their 
dead selves to higher things.” 


4 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


And if your religion is not a religion of sacrifice, 
a religion that sacrifices the lower for the higher, it 
is not the religion of Jesus Christ. 

Second. The particular things we are called 
upon to sacrifice depends very much upon our posi¬ 
tion—not our position in the church but our po¬ 
sition in the world. The teaching of the New Tes¬ 
tament will not for one moment admit that certain 
things are perfectly innocent for you because you 
are simply a church member but sinful for me 
because I am a preacher. I have the same right 
before God to do what another Christian does and 
what is wrong for a preacher is wrong for any kind 
of a Christian. And I have an idea that this whole 
question would not wait long for a solution and the 
church would become suddenly pure if its mem¬ 
bers allowed themselves only the indulgences to 
which you would be glad to see your pastor give 
himself; and I am equally sure that if you knew 
your pastor to be a wine-drinking, card-playing, 
theater-going, dancing man, you would have little 
confidence in his preaching and prefer some other 
type of minister to be with you in sickness and 
most of all when you were dying. 

Now, there must be a difference between a per¬ 
son who is a Christian and one who is not. I know 
the Bible and nature say, “Whatsoever a man 
sows, that shall he also reap,” and whether a 
man is a Christian or not he must sacrifice his over- 
indulgence in strong drink if he does not want to 

5 



THE CHRISTIAN 


reap a diseased body, a ruined reputation and a 
life of shame. There are other things we may not 
do regardless of our position unless we suffer, but 
there are certainly some things which the world 
may allow itself with clear conscience but which we, 
because we are Christians, ought not to do. I 
do not know what Jesus meant when He said, 
“What do ye more than others?” unless He meant 
something like what I have just mentioned. 

“What do ye more than others?” Alas! there 
is so often too little difference between the man 
who professes to be a Christian and the man 
who does not, if one must judge by the life that 
is lived; and if there is no difference, if there are 
not some things to which the world is given, which 
the Christian must forego, then what a miserable 
farce all our preaching and all our profession 
really is l 

Let it be understood therefore that I am speak¬ 
ing more especially to those who profess to be 
Christians. Certainly if it shall appear that the 
things under discussion to-night are impure and 
unholy and harmful in themselves, I shall expect 
everyone who claims to stand for that which is 
highest and purest, regardless of your profession, 
to register yourself against them. But if I can 
even so much as prove them to be questionable, it 
shall certainly be just as much expected of the one 
who professes to be a Christian that they shall give 
God the benefit of the doubt in making their deci- 
6 




AND AMUSEMENTS 


sion and follow the teachings of His word about 
such things. 

Gbe CarD Cable 

Let us begin with the cards, commonly called the 
euchre deck. And I know the very first thought, 
the thought already rising in the minds of sonie of 
you is concerning the question of the difference be¬ 
tween playing with these cards and others, such as 
the flinch deck or the authors, and I make haste to 
reply that so far as the cards themselves are con¬ 
cerned there is none, nor do I think we can rea¬ 
sonably claim that the playing with these or any 
other decorated pieces of pasteboard may be 
properly called a sin in itself, and yet the difference 
between the use of these cards is as great as the dif¬ 
ference between any two things can possibly be. 

The wrong lies in what history has shown them 
to lead to. The question is not to be settled by 
what might be done or what might come from these 
indulgences, but by what history has shown to be 
their invariable outcome. The card table has been 
condemned because it leads to a waste of time, but 
this and many other accusations against it I shall 
not notice because they are equally true of other 
games which we hold as innocent. I repeat again 
that the question must be settled by what the his - 
tory of the game has proven to be true and the one 
sweeping condemnation of the euchre deck is that 
it is and always has been the devil’s chief tool for 

7 



THE CHRISTIAN 


gambling. I do not say that men could not gamble 
over authors or dominoes or croquet or any other 
game, but the fact remains that they seldom or 
never do. If the devil forsook the euchre deck and 
did with any other game what he is doing to-day 
with it, I would assuredly drop that game from my 
amusement list and substitute the euchre deck in 
its place. But the fact remains that the euchre 
deck is the gambler’s instrument. 

What is the first thing a young man sees when 
he enters a gambling hell? Is it authors or flinch 
or parchesi or any other such game? No, it is the 
euchre deck, just like the one he used to see in his 
home and just like the one lying on the center table 
or in the stand drawer in your home, mother, to¬ 
night. On every table the card deck is seen. The 
air is foul with impure breath and fouler still with 
the oaths and coarse language and harsh laughs that 
are heard as the chips and the glittering coins min¬ 
gle their seductive sounds with the clinking of the 
glasses and the snapping of the pasteboard cards. 

Every gambler and every drunkard and every 
thief and every tramp and the keeper of every 
brothel and every low-down lecherous debauchee 
has a pack of filthy, finger-worn euchre cards in 
his possession, the same cards which are used to 
play the same games which some of you are teach¬ 
ing your children to play in your home. 

Nine-tenths of all the gambling in America, if 
you except pool selling, the race track and the 
8 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


Board of Trade is done with the euchre deck. It 
is the gambler’s tool. 

It is also a sad fact, but one which no one can 
deny, that nine-tenths of all the gamblers in this 
country learned to play cards in the home. You 
say, you are going to allow your boy to play in the 
home so he will not want to play when away from 
home. But what sort of philosophy is that for a 
game that kindles a passion in the human breast? 
Gambling is a passion and you might as well say I 
am going to give my boy a little whiskey in the 
home so he will not want any when outside of the 
home. 

Mr. John Bigelow, writing on gambling, said: 
“Nine people out of ten when they for the first time 
accept an invitation to join in a game of whist or 
poker have no more suspicion of the passions they 
may be about to nurse than the maid of sixteen 
when she engages in her first flirtation.” 

John Philip Quinn, the converted Chicago gam¬ 
bler, said the card-playing home was “the kinder¬ 
garten for the gambling saloon.” 

In 1893 the Civil Federation of Chicago inter¬ 
viewed 3,000 professional gamblers, all of whom, 
with but few exceptions, said they learned to play 
cards in the home. 

In a men’s meeting recently conducted by one 
of the most successful pastors in Ohio, a converted 
gambler, and ex-saloon keeper made the following 
statement, which created a profound impression. 

9 



THE CHRISTIAN 


He said: “I have been in the saloon business 
with a gambling room attached, for the last four 
years, and claim to know something about what I 
am going to tell you. I do not believe the gam¬ 
bling den is nearly so dangerous, nor does it do any 
thing like the same amount of harm as the social 
card party in the home. I give this as my reason: 
In the gambling room the windows are closed 
tight, the curtains are pulled down; everything is 
conducted secretly for fear of detection, and none 
but gamblers as a rule, enter there, while in the 
parlor all have access to the game, children are 
permitted to watch it, young people are invited to 
partake in it. It is made attractive and alluring 
by giving prizes, serving refreshments and adding 
high social enjoyments. 

“Perhaps you have never though tof it, but where 
do all of the gamblers come from? They are not 
taught in the gambling dens. A ‘ greener * unless 
he is a fool, never enters a gambling hell, be¬ 
cause he knows that he will be fleeced out of every¬ 
thing he possesses in less than fifteen minutes. He 
has learned somewhere else before he sets foot 
inside of such a place. When he has played in 
the parlor in the social game of the home, and has 
become proficient enough to win prizes among his 
friends, the next step with him is to seek out the 
gambling room, for he has learned and now counts 
upon his efficiency to hold his own. The saloon 
men and gamblers chuckle and smile when they 
io 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


read in the papers of the parlor games given by the 
ladies for they know that after awhile those same 
men will become the patrons of their business. I 
say, then, the parlor game is the college where 
gamblers are made and educated. In the name 
of God, men, stop this business in your homes. 
Burn up your decks and wash your hands.” 

After he had taken his seat another converted 
ex-gambler arose and said: “I indorse every word 
which the brother before me has just uttered. I 
was a gambler. I learned to play cards not in 
the saloon, not in my own home, but in the houses 
of my young friends, who invited me to play with 
them and taught me how. ” 

I am indebted to my friend, M. B. Williams, for 
the story of James Kilgore. It is well known 
among religious workers. James Kilgore came 
from the country to the city of Cincinnati, a young 
man to seek employment. He secured living ac¬ 
commodations at the home of a Presbyterian elder. 
A few nights after his arrival, when supper was 
over the euchre deck was brought out and the 
young man was invited to play. He said he did 
not know how, but the youngest daughter of the 
family who had invited him told him they would 
teach him the game. He then said his father and 
mother thought it wrong and did not wish him to 
play. “Oh,” said the young woman, “I’m afraid 
your father and mother are a little out of date; you 
don’t think there could possibly come any harm 


ii 



THE CHRISTIAN 


from it or else my papa who is an elder in the 
church would not permit us to play! ” And there 
he stood, a big, bashful country youth with a 
beautiful city girl poking visions of love into his 
eyes, and he just allowed himself to be made her 
prisoner and she took him off to the table. He 
seemed to have a natural capacity for the game 
and before long he and his fair partner could beat 
any other couple in the neighborhood. 

One day out of the office a little early he was 
met by the young man from this same home and 
invited over to a room to play a little while. He 
found himself in a room connected with a saloon, 
and altho’ he resented the imposition, in other days 
he found himself there again. Money was intro¬ 
duced to make the game interesting and Kilgore 
usually played the winning card. Finding that 
the shortest cut to fortune lay in his skill with cards 
it was not long until he was launched on a gambler’s 
career. One evening he saw an easy prey in a 
young man just from the country. He said, 
“Hello! how are the old folks down on the farm,” 
and asked him if he didn’t want to see the city. 
He took him to a place of ill repute with a gambling 
room attached. When he knocked, some one said, 
“Who’s there?” and Kilgore replied, “Open up 
or I’ll show you.” He had been there a few nights 
before and had gotten into trouble and threatened 
to come back and clean the place out. Thinking 
he had come to keep his threat, a sharp report of 


12 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


a pistol was heard. He felt something warm 
spatter on his cheek and heard a dull thud on 
the sidewalk. He reached up with his hand and 
wiped the young man’s brains from his face; ran 
to the Queen and Crescent depot and took the 
first train for the south. He opened a gambling 
room in a Tennessee town and one day the money 
was piled high around the table. Every one felt 
the final struggle must end in blood, and just as 
James Kilgore was about to throw the lucky card 
there was a quick flash of knives and his gashed 
and lacerated body rolled on the floor. They 
dragged him out into the street. Some one said, 
“He is the one that has ruined our boys; it’s good 
enough for him.” But a Christian woman with a 
kinder heart said, “He’s some mother’s boy.” 
She took him to her home and cared for him in the 
name of Christ, but that did not reform him. He 
went down to Pensacola, Florida, and one night on 
his way to a gambling room he passed the church 
where a crowd was pushing in to hear John B. Cul¬ 
pepper, the evangelist preach. He elbowed his way 
in and heard the burning words of that man of God; 
the memories of his old home came back, his heart 
was touched, he went to the front and on his knees 
in tears he gave himself to God. He became a 
preacher of the Gospel, but he preached it with his 
body all cut and gashed and his soul all scarred 
with sin. But the worst of it all is that thirteen of 
the best years of his life were worse than wasted, 



THE CHRISTIAN 


given to iniquity with their awful sowing to the 
wind and all because an elder of the Presbyterian 
church could see no harm in playing cards in his 
home. You say, “He might have become a gam¬ 
bler anyhow.” Yes, that is true, but it certainly 
furnishes no excuse for the part played in his sad 
career by one who bore the name of Christ. 

That gambling is more widespread to-day than 
ever before is easily proven by its literature. Fifty 
years ago there was but one or two newspapers 
devoted wholly to sports and these were only 
weekly or monthly but to-day we have over forty 
weeklies and one or two dailies. And did you know 
that fifty years ago there was but very little card 
playing in the home. It was the exception when 
after supper the table was cleared and the parents 
brought out the euchre deck and taught their chil¬ 
dren the gambler’s game. And do you know that 
the widespread gambling oj our country has kept 
pace exactly with the increase of card playing in 
our homes. And, mother, father, it’s an awful 
charge to make, but before God, it’s true, that in a 
large measure for every mother’s heart that’s bled, 
for every wife’s heart that’s been broken, for every 
home that has been left to battle with poverty, 
shame and disgrace, for every shattered character 
and ruined life, for every glittering blade that has 
been thrust across the table and bathed in human 
blood, for every gambler who has lost his life and 
sent his soul to hell, because of an acquaintance 


14 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


with cards and a passion for the game, the card¬ 
playing homes of this land are, I say, before God 
and man, in a large measure responsible. 

Some years ago in a large convention of gamblers 
the chairman said: “Gentlemen, whatever else 
you do, encourage card playing in the home.” 
Now mother, I want to ask you calmly and quietly 
and tenderly, do you want the same thing en¬ 
couraged in your home that the gambler wants 
encouraged there? Is it possible that you are of 
one mind with the gamblers about this matter? 
And is not the mere fact that the gamblers of this 
country want cards played in your home enough 
to make you stop and seriously consider whether 
you want it there or not? What more need be 
said. 

Z be Gbeater 

And now what shall be said of the theater? I 
am not going into a wholesale condemnation of the 
drama, the opera and every sort of theatrical per¬ 
formance because I believe in the possible redemp¬ 
tion of the stage and when it is redeemed I believe 
it will be one of the most powerful agencies for 
good in the whole world. 

I am not going to say there is nothing good 
upon the stage to-day, for there are plays, though 
they are sadly in the minority, which one could 
witness w T ith a real moral uplift, and I am only 
sorry that the condition of the theater as an insti- 
15 



THE CHRISTIAN 


tution is such to-day as hardly makes it possible for 
many reasons, for a consistent Christian to enjoy 
even that which would do him good and could do 
him no possible harm. 

It is, therefore, not upon the imaginary theater, 
not upon the theater as an ideal, but upon the 
theater as it actually exists to-day and as the history 
of the world has always shown it to be that we must 
speak to-night. 

The criticisms which I now bring to your atten¬ 
tion you will notice are not made by ministers or 
church people but by critics of all classes and pro¬ 
fessions. 

First. The best literary criticism from the time 
of the theater’s first appearance until the present 
unsparingly condemns it as the polluter of public 
morals. Xenophon and Plato and Plutarch and 
Socrates and Seneca and Tacitus and all the best 
statesmen and writers of Greece and Rome and 
every other country denounced the theater un¬ 
mercifully, and declared it to be a place where men 
and women of delicate feeling and refinement could 
not go. 

Oh, you say those old philosophers and states¬ 
men and men of public position were not enlight¬ 
ened and didn’t know anything. Very w T ell then, 
we will come a little further along. 

Mr. Leckey, the great European historian—and 
by the way, you know Mr. Leckey was not noted for 
being fanatically religious like your poor narrow- 
16 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


minded minister for whose opinion on these matter! 
you never did have any respect—but Mr. Leckey, in 
his splendid volume “Rationalism in Europe,” 
declared that the theater in the Middle Ages 
“brought about the degradation of the church and 
all religion.” 

Macaulay said of the English theater: “From 
the time that the theaters were opened they became 
the seminaries of vice.” And Sir Walter Scott said 
it was a place fit only for people of indelicate and 
unrefined taste. 

“Oh,” you say, “Leckey and Macaulay and Scott 
were prejudiced and blinded.” Strange, that every¬ 
body should be in that condition but you I But 
come a little further on. 

It is an interesting fact that there is on record to¬ 
day a resolution of the American Congress passed 
soon after the Declaration of Independence, which 
reads as follows: 

“Whereas, true religion and good morals are the 
only solid foundation of public liberty and happi¬ 
ness. 

“Resolved, That it be and is hereby earnestly 
recommended to the several states to take most 
effectual measures for the discouragement and 
suppression of theatrical entertainments, horse- 
racing, gaming and other such diversions as are 
productive of idleness, dissipation and a general 
depravity of principles and morals.” 

“Oh,” you say, “our fore-fathers and statesmen 
i7 



THE CHRISTIAN 


of our American Congress were all fanatics and 
fools!” Very well, let us come further along. 

A few years ago in Chicago when the true condi¬ 
tion of the theater was laid bare by Herrick John¬ 
son, among other comments of like character by the 
Press are the following, brought to our attention 
by this writer. 

The New York Evening Post: “There has 
probably been a greater mass of meretricious rub¬ 
bish set on the stage during the last ten years than 
during the whole of its previous existence.” This 
rubbish the Post interprets a little further on as 
an “appeal to the baser instincts.” 

The Philadelphia Press: “The stage has 
reached that point of degradation which Dr. John¬ 
son deprecated and Byron deplored.” 

The Chicago Times: “Twenty-five years ago 
such an exhibition as is now nightly made in 
the modem comic opera, in the most matter-of-fact 
way, would have come well-nigh to landing the 
whole party in the police station.” 

The sporting editors of four of the leading news¬ 
papers in one of our cities when asked recently for 
a confidential opinion of the theater replied, every 
one of them in substance, that almost without ex¬ 
ception the plays of these nights are full of vile sug¬ 
gestion and utterly unfit for anyone who wants only 
clean thoughts to enter their mind. 

“Oh,” you say, “I don’t care what the press 
says.” All right. 

18 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


Second. The best dramatic criticism condemns 
the theater in its present day condition. 

Now these dramatic critics are not religious 
fanatics but devotees for the most part of the stage 
as an art and have the best interests of the profes¬ 
sion at heart. One is simply compelled to turn in 
disgust at times from the criticisms they seem com¬ 
pelled to pen. “Outrageously indelicate,” “licen¬ 
tious buffoonery,” “disgust-ing,” “demoralizing, 
lewd and lascivious,” are some of the terms with 
which they describe our present day theatrical ex¬ 
hibitions. Some of them are even now prophesy¬ 
ing that the day will come and it is not far distant 
when the stage will fall to pieces of its own corrup¬ 
tion if it is not soon purified. 

Mr. Charles M. Bregg, dramatic critic for the 
Pittsburg Gazette-Times , said of the theater a 
couple of weeks ago. “It represents in some re¬ 
spects the most violent worldiness, the most flaunt¬ 
ing immorality, the most defiant sin and the most 
vicious influence. It seduces and corrupts under 
our very eye. Though it is not to be ranked with 
the saloon, yet it can do more harm, for it gets the 
girls. 

Mr. Clement Scott, London’s distinguished 
theatrical critic, said: “It is nearly impossible for 
a woman to remain pure who adopts the stage as a 
profession. Everything is against her, and what is 
more to be deplored is that a woman who endeavors 
to keep her purity is almost of necessity doomed to 
19 



THE CHRISTIAN 


failure in her career. It is an awful thing to say, 
and is still more terrible that it is true, but none who 
know the life of the green-room will deny it.” Mr. 
Scott says he is not a “ canting prig or a Pharisee 
who makes broad his phylacteries and says ‘ Thank 
God I am not as other men are, ’ ” and so far as I 
know, he has never been so accused, but if there is 
any truth at all in what he says about the stage I 
wonder if a really consistent child of God can be 
indifferent to its patronage. 

Third. The best professional criticism is against 
the theater as it now exists. Mr. A. M. Palmer, 
one of the oldest and most successful theater mana¬ 
gers, a man known all over both continents, says: 
“‘The chief themes of the theater are now as they 
ever have been, the passions of men—ambition and 
jealousy leading to murder; anger leading to mad¬ 
ness, and lust leading to adultery and death.” 

Even the professional actors do not hesitate to 
lend their testimony. John Gilbert, the veteran 
actor, in discussing just such plays as you Chris¬ 
tian people are attending, has written, “I say, as an 
actor, without any hesitation, that such plays have 
a very bad influence on nearly all people, especially 
on the young.” 

“None of my children,” said Macready, the 
actor, “shall ever with my consent, on any pre¬ 
tense, enter a theater or have any visiting connection 
with actors or actresses.” 

Edwin Booth said, “I never permit my wife and 


20 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


daughters to witness a play without previously as¬ 
certaining its character.” 

Mr. Dumas, the play-writer, said, “Let me say, 
once for all, you must not take your daughter to the 
theater.” 

Mr. Sothem, over his own signature said, “I 
have known some of our best performers who have 
found it necessary to first attend and see a play be¬ 
fore they would allow their wives and daughters to 
go. Why was this necessary?” he asks. “Why,” 
he answers, “because they knew there was very 
little cleanness in those places, and who better than 
they should know?” 

Surely there must be some question about the 
theater to call for such comment from every quarter 
and every kind of criticism. 

Fourth. Because of what has already been said 
none will be surprised to hear that the best religious 
criticism has always been against the theater. 

You will certainly, after having listened to all the 
authority just quoted, permit a few references to the 
opinion of the church. 

More than 250 years ago in a published list of 
authorities there were not only 71 ancient fathers 
and 150 modem Catholic and Protestant writers, 
but 54 Synods, Associations and Conferences of the 
church of Jesus Christ pronounced against this 
form of indulgence, and the church to-day is as 
much, or more pronounced (if that be possible) than 
ever. Such a verdict ought to have some weight. 


21 



THE CHRISTIAN 


“Oh,” you say, “I don't care what the church 
says or thinks about this matter.” And you a 
church member! 

And all the while we are thinking of this criticism 
there is one sad fact which keeps staring us in the 
face. And that is, to a very large degree we our¬ 
selves are responsible for making the theater what 
it is. 

The New York Press in commenting upon this 
subject, said, “The drama of the hour is artificial. 
Instead of teaching humanity that good is prefer¬ 
able to evil, it mocks our tested notions of morality 
and panders to the passions and nervous greed for 
excitement. And yet,” says the Press , “no one is 
to blame for such a state of affairs but the public.” 

To a certain extent the theatrical management is 
to be exonerated. If you ask, “Why do they not 
put only clean and moral plays upon the stage and 
thus elevate the standard of the theater,” they re¬ 
ply, that they are not in the elevating business. 
They are quite willing to leave that to Christians 
and people in general. As a business they must 
make it pay or quit and they have long since found 
that people in general will not very long patronize a 
clean, pure presentation upon the stage, and noth¬ 
ing therefore is left for them but to pander to the 
depraved and vitiated tastes of their patrons. 

Every effort on the part of the management to 
reform the theater has utterly failed. Edwin 
Booth tried it in New York. On the spot where 


22 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


the Me Creary’s mammoth department store now 
stands, Edwin Booth once declared he would have 
a moral theater and he lost $600,000 in the ven¬ 
ture. Henry Irving tried it in London but it didn’t 
succeed. Ben Jonson tried it and failed. Han¬ 
nah More wrote moral plays but the management 
told her they could not use them because they 
would not pay. It is true, as Wayland Sinks has 
said, that there is not one theater in our country to¬ 
day that is sustained or can be made profitable by 
pure drama or morally unobjectionable plays . Even 
the best of Shakespeare’s plays fall flat as financial 
ventures; people will not patronize them for any 
length of time, unless there is with them some noted 
star Lke a Booth or a Barrett whom of course you 
would not want to miss the privilege of seeing and 
hearing, but you will and do patronize any sort of 
acting under other circumstances. There is not a 
theater in this city that could prosper the year 
through on the cleanest of Shakespearian drama or 
other morally wholesome plays, unless it be the con¬ 
tinued stand of some one play of great reputation. 
Here is an illustration of this fact just clipped from 
a newspaper in Waukegan, Illinois, a few days ago: 

“SHAKESPEARE NO GO HERE ” 

“Schwaitz management finds that production of 
classic plays does not pay. William Owen greeted 
with deplorably small house; though piece was 
good.” Then follows part of the manager’s letter: 

23 



THE CHRISTIAN 


“I would respectfully request that you send no more 
Shakespearian plays to Waukegan unless they have 
a noted woman for a lead. Waukegan doesn’t 
want them.” 

What now are the specific charges against the 
theater? 

The chief of these, some would have us believe, 
lies in the effort upon the actor. For a man to play 
perfectly the part of another character he must take 
himself out of himself and put himself over so far 
as possible into the character he wishes to simulate. 
To play the part of Iago the villain, one must study 
Iago, think Iago, talk Iago, act Iago and so far as 
possible be Iago. If the character to be simulated 
be that of an impure woman, then the pure woman 
who is to play the part must deliberately plan to 
think and feel and seem to be impure. 

Sir Henry Irving has committed at least 15,000 
murders on the stage; Mr. Charles Wyndham has 
been divorced from 2,800 wives and Miss Ada 
Cavendish has been foully betrayed and deserted 
5,600 times. 

I wish to ask those of you of finer sensibilities, 
who understand just a little the psychology of 
human nature, if you think that a pure-minded 
man or woman can live and dwell in an atmosphere 
like that without deadening somewhat the finer 
sensibilities of their own nature? And the reputa¬ 
tions born by the vast majority of men and women 


24 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


in the profession is the best evidence of what I am 
saying. Eleanore Duse, the celebrated actress, 
says, “The majority of the actors and actresses 
whose acquaintance I have made are despicable.” 
We do not mean to say that there are no pure- 
minded men or women on the stage, but these are 
the exceptions and are almost like Shakespeare's 
“two grains of wheat hidden in two bushels of 
chaff.” We quoted Mr. Clement Scott, the dis¬ 
tinguished dramatic critic, as saying, “It is almost 
impossible for a woman to remain pure who adopts 
the stage as a profession,” and the history of the 
profession proves that Mr. Scott understands the 
subject he has so long and carefully studied. Now, 
as Dr. Johnson has said, “If the theater is a school 
of morals, how does it happen that the teachers so 
seldom learn their own lessons?” 

I cannot myself, however, get away from the 
conviction that the chiefest of all objections to the 
theater lies in its effect upon its audience. 

The specific charge I now make against the 
theater is that its chief appeal is to the baser in¬ 
stincts of our human nature. Two things will prove 
this to any fair and pure-minded person. 

First. The first is the foul suggestiveness of 
nine-tenths of the present day plays. I will not 
make the assertion but will quote again those words 
of Mr. Palmer, the distinguished theatrical man¬ 
ager, who said, “The chief themes of the theater are 
now, as they ever have been, the passions of men— 


2 5 




THE CHRISTIAN 


ambition and jealousy leading to murder, lust lead¬ 
ing to adultery and death.” The management 
has become even bold enough to call them “seventh 
commandment plays,” and the stage is full to-day 
of presentations of what an enthusiastic defender 
of the drama has called “A murderous assault 
upon all that the family circle holds most holy and 
sacred.” You need only review the plays that have 
been recently most popular and many of which are 
now being presented nightly in the best theaters of 
the country. I will review some of them for you. Of 
course I shall say nothing of such plays as “Why 
Girls Leave Home,” “The Wages of Sin,” “The 
Confessions of a Grass-widow,” and a thousand 
others like them -whose titles may speak for them¬ 
selves. I shall not refer to the low-class comic 
opera, “The Isle of Bong Bong,” “The Chinese 
Honeymoon,” “The Goo-goo Man,” and a thou¬ 
sand others like them, but I will mention a few of 
the so-called better class plays. They are not on 
the boards at present in your city so you’ll not be 
tempted to go. Olga Nethersole who outraged the 
decency of respectable womanhood by her Sappho 
is here again with a new play called the “Laby¬ 
rinth.” In this play the chief character is that of 
a woman, the wife of two husbands, who having 
divorced her first husband because of base infidelity 
marries another man and later returns to her first 
love, who is the father of her child. “Tess of the 
Dubervilles” is a “seventh commandment play” 
26 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


entirely worthy of the mind that stooped to think 
it out “East Lynne” in its entire setting turns 
upon matrimonial infidelity; adultery is followed 
by murder; murder by remarriage and this by the 
reappearance of the first wife to die in the house. 
How elevating it must be, mother, for your daugh¬ 
ter to sit for two hours and a half and follow this all 
through not only with her eyes but with her mind— 
revolving it all over and thinking it all through! 
It helps her, no doubt, to retain the fine, keen, deli¬ 
cate edge of maidenly modesty which is woman’s 
crowning jewel. 

In “The Hypocrites” Lennard Wilmore finds 
himself in a fix which consists in being engaged to 
one girl and loving another who is about to become 
the mother of his child and Jessie Milward who 
plays the r 61 e of his mother suggests a lie as the 
best remedy for the situation. 

“Pendragon” is a play in which a pure-hearted 
man is crushed by the revelation of his wife’s shame 
and dishonor. “The School for Scandal,” as Dr. 
Buckley has well said, is a play “the whole of which 
no woman could read to a man not her husband 
without giving him good cause to suspect her 
purity.” “Felicia” is a play sustained by illicit 
intimacy, in which the mother reveals her life of 
shame to her illegitimate child. 

A certain French actress of international repute 
has just gone through our country on her farewell 
tour. She has “farewelled” us several times be- 


2 7 




THE CHRISTIAN 


fore. No one who knows anything of Sarah Bern¬ 
hardt at all will deny that she “panders to the licen¬ 
tious’’ and her entire repertoire, some of which so 
many of you have gone to see, even the theatrical 
press writers call “the Frenchiest of the French.” 

“Adrianne Lecouvreur” is so thoroughly licen¬ 
tious that one of the Chicago press writers has said, 
“It is quite as well the words are in an unfamiliar 
tongue.” 

“Camille,” another of her master productions, 
which has crowded the leading theaters of the land 
is the glorification of a woman who has dragged her 
soul through the foulest corruption that loose virtue 
can know. 

You see I am not searching about for the plays 
given in low class or even second-grade theaters. 
These are the nightly productions of the so-called 
best and first-class stages of the country. 

The leading operas are not any better. 

Faust is a passion piece in which a young girl 
Margaret by name is first betrayed and then after 
her ruin is made to murder her own mother and 
her illegitimate child. 

“Lucretia Borgia” is the shameful story of illicit 
relationships and is demoralizing in the extreme. 
“Don Giovanni” as a noted playwriter has said is 
“the proverbial hero whose career represents the 
romance of successful adultery and debauchery.” 
“Norma” is one of the leading operas. Do you 
know who Norma is? I would not dare to tell you. 

28 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


If I should be so ungentlemanly as to recite in your 
presence the story of Norma, these ministers, and 
your husbands and fathers would be justified in 
rising and driving me from this building. Some 
of you don’t like to hear me say this, but you’ll 
pay a dollar to go and see it. 

But in all seriousness I want to ask you now, can 
you conceive without surprise of a pure-minded, re¬ 
fined, intelligent man or woman making a defense 
of an institution the secret of whose success seems 
to lie in making the crowd of which your daughter 
and your boy constitute a part, familiar with the 
working of illicit love and the play of criminal 
passion ? 

Second. The other thing which proves that 
the chief appeal of the theater is to the baser in- 
tincts of our nature is the indecent display of 
nudity and the human form. We have actually 
come to a time when plays which in themselves 
perchance might pass without censure must needs 
be stopped several times in the course of the even¬ 
ing while a crowd of girls in tights or otherwise 
immodestly exposed are given the stage; and if you 
ask the manager a reason for this intrusion he will 
give you for an answer a wink of his eye. In one 
of the best, so-called respectable theaters of Chicago 
such a play was given, a play interesting enough in 
itself, intensely so if it’s anything like the book, but 
the play in itself would hardly do for an average 
American audience; it must needs be embellished 


29 



THE CHRISTIAN 


with a shameless exposure of physical beauty, and 
the Chicago Inter-Ocean in commenting upon it 
said, “Spangles and tights are its charm. Low-cut 
bodices reveal its interest.” The Chicago Inter- 
Ocean said that, but God pity the poor depraved 
tastes of the people if there is one grain of truth 
in it. 

You need only look at the billboards sometimes 
to get an idea of what may be seen as you sit in 
your seat before the stage. I can think of nothing 
more demoralizing to our children as they go on 
their way to school than to have their minds 
poisoned with some of these foul and filthy posters 
which line our streets in the interest of the theat¬ 
rical life of this country. 

I was preaching in the city of Waukegan, Illinois, 
a short time ago and so utterly vile were some of 
the bulletins, that over the forms of the women 
some of the boys of the street had taken their pen¬ 
cils and written all sorts of filthy and unclean 
thoughts which had been suggested by the lasciv¬ 
ious pictures before them. And I say it is a burn¬ 
ing insult to the virtuous womanhood of this coun¬ 
try, a vile outrage upon the sweet chastity of your 
wife and your daughter and your sister, and a 
brazen affront to everything that is pure and clean 
and holy, that we must permit this carnival of 
pictured lewdness to go on unmolested before our 
very eyes. 

Now I do not think there is any use to disguise 
30 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


the fact, or even to try to disguise it, that this ex¬ 
hibition of women with such approaches to nudity 
and such display of the human form has for its 
strongest tendency, if not its chiefest purpose, the 
breeding of thoughts that are unclean behind the 
on-looking eyes. The world admits it and we might 
just as well be as honest. Go to the pool rooms or 
where men congregate and hear what they say 
about it, and see if this is not true. And if the 
Bible is true when it says, “As a man thinketh in 
his heart, so is he,” how few of the men who sit so 
frequently before the footlights of the theater can 
say they have never there been guilty of sin. 

In one of our largest cities not long ago so bold 
and hideous did the better-class theaters become 
in the vile suggestiveness of their plays, that for 
once the daily press joined the pulpit in crying for 
their suppression, and it has not been long since, 
in the city of New York, the city authorities in 
the name of virtue and decency stopped a play in 
the very midst of its performance, and I have won¬ 
dered how many of the seats were occupied by 
those who professed themselves to be Christians. 
In the name of the chaste and holy Jesus, who 
pleased not Himself, what does it mean to be a 
Christian! 

Zbc Dance 

Now as to the dance. What shall be said about 
this indulgence? I speak of course of the round 
dance; the dance which Byron calls “the endear- 
3i 



THE CHRISTIAN 


ing, seductive waltz.” Human nature is such that 
we can be none too careful, but it is the dance 
as carried on in present-day fashionable society 
which I am now about to discuss and not the old- 
time minuet and the stately cotillon or not undigni¬ 
fied Virginian Reel. But human blood is all too 
warm for that and the square dance is now only 
tolerated for a few moments at the beginning as a 
sop to public opinion for the abandon that comes 
with the later hours of the night’s indulgence. 

There are two things I want to say in passing. 

First. The hardest young man and especially 
young woman in the world to win for Christ is the 
one who is devoted to the dance. In my work as 
an evangelist I have had scores upon scores say to 
me, “If I must quit dancing I will not become a 
Christian,” and this is usually said when not a word 
had been said about the dance. It must be the 
prompting of a guilty conscience. If the fascination 
of the dance is so terrible as to cause you to choose 
it in preference to Christ and the church, that 
alone ought to stamp it as a great enemy to moral 
and spiritual beauty. 

Second. For every professing Christian who 
has anything to say in defense of the dance there 
can be found an unconverted person who makes 
no pretense at being religious who will say that if 
they become a Christian they would expect to give 
up that form of indulgence. I wonder why this is? 
I wonder if it is because, as Gail Hamilton said, 


32 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


“The very poise of the parties suggests impurity.’’ 
I wonder if it is because, as broad and liberal- 
minded Horace Bushnell said, it is one of “the con¬ 
trived possibilities of license.” I wonder if it be 
because as Mrs. Gen. W. T. Sherman said after 
reading “The Dance of Death” that “women of 
virtue or self-respect who know the contents of that 
volume would blush to have the dance named to 
them”; and if there is any truth in these statements 
or in a thousand others like them from men and 
women of all kinds and from every rank in life, I 
wonder if it is possible that people who make no 
pretense at being religious can see ruin and moral 
putrefaction where God’s own professed children 
can see nothing but innocent and harmless pleasure? 
Or I wonder if these people of the world are more 
honest than some of us who will not admit the truth 
because forsooth it would rob us of an excitement 
that appeals to our poor sensual natures? 

If there is any truth at all in what has been sug¬ 
gested, the chief indictment of the dance is at once 
before us. 

It has been maintained by others that, unlike the 
card game and the theater, the dance is immoral 
in itself, on the ground that the assumption of any 
improper attitude between the sexes, whether it be 
behind the curtains of a dimly lighted parlor or on 
the dancing floor or in the shadows of a moonlight 
stroll, is necessarily immoral in itself except it be 
between man and his wife or his betrothed. Think 


33 



THE CHRISTIAN 


as you please about that; my concern is about get¬ 
ting you to see something else, and that is, namely, 
that the dance has its basis in the passions of human 
nature. 

Every thing that follows ought to furnish con¬ 
clusive proof of this statement. 

First. The mingling of the sexes in dancing 
originated in Greece among men of contaminated 
morals and women of loose, questionable character. 
There are no square dances in the brothels, and 
what is done there with the avowed and expressed 
purpose of exciting the sensual nature, do you think 
you can indulge without any tendency whatever in 
that direction? 

Second. There is little or no delight in the dance 
without the opposite sex. The man who dances 
only with his wife and the girl who dances only with 
her brother gets tired quickest and goes home 
earliest. The dance is the only indulgence that 
requires the two sexes to make it tolerable. Men 
play cards alone and women do, and engage in all 
other amusements all alone and the pleasure is 
often heightened by the absence of the opposite sex 
but what club or society ever gave a ball to those 
of its own sex only? 

Third. The testimony of those who have danced 
is worth something. A man came to me recently 
and said, “I wish you would pray for a friend of 
mine. He’s a splendid fellow, I’ve just had a good 
talk with him. He’s been married a few months 


34 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


and he told me that a few nights ago his young wife 
asked him to go to the dance, and he said, “Mabel, 
I’m married now, and if you want me to be true to 
you, don’t ask me to go to the dance.” A man 
whose thoughts are unholy is none the less false. 
Some young men are quite free with their lips. 
Not all young men are thus guilty, thank God, and 
the things that have been in their minds never find 
expression in their words, but young woman, if you 
could hear the remarks of some of these young men, 
or know the thoughts begotten at least in their 
minds by the dance a blush of shame would mantle 
your cheek to think that you had ever given your¬ 
self to their embrace. 

Fourth. If the dance did not have its basis in the 
passions, such a man as Lord Byron, being the man 
that he was, could never have written about it as 
he did. Women, you are pure and noble and 
chaste, but how you could give yourself to the dance 
after reading the ode to “The Waltz” by the author 
of Don Juan is a hard thing for a pure-minded man 
to understand. 

Since these things are facts and not speculations 
there can no longer be any doubt as to why the 
dance is wrong. I but recently laid down a book 
containing ten indictments against the modern 
dance, but because human nature is what it is, any 
one who understands it at all can see without 
a moment’s reflection that the chief indictment 
against the dance is that in its nature , in its tendency 

35 



THE CHRISTIAN 


% 


and in its results it is dangerous to social purity , and 
that all other reasons for condemning it dwindle 
away into insignificance in comparison with this. 

It ought not to take any facts or figures to prove 
this. Here are the dancers, locked, you will allow 
me to say, at least partially in each others embrace, 
moving as one body across the floor, the man gazing 
upon the half-concealed charms of his partner, 
blowing his warm breath upon her exposed arms 
and breast, that almost magic and ungovernable 
personal electricity darting between their meeting 
fingers, their blood heated and quickened with 
every step until the heat of one body passes into the 
other. Do you mean to say that a man can give 
himself to a thing like that hour after hour and not 
be in danger of having at least the pure white of his 
soul sullied by that which is unchaste and unclean! 
That man is not made of putty or marble. He is 
made as all men are made and these quivering 
bundles of nerve and passion can well afford to get 
along without an environment, the tendency of 
which is in the direction just noted. Granting that 
none but the purest-minded men ever dance, no 
man’s mind is thought proof, and any indulgence 
which may cause man to fling away or lose the 
eternal jewel of chaste thought and in its sequel 
proves bestial and degrading, is hardly a thing for 
a consistent Christian to defend. Woman, you may 
not understand this; but Man, you understand it 
all and you know that it is all true. 

36 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


No further proof ought to be required. Enough 
has already been given; but 

First. I can prove it by the testimony of the 
dancing masters. At their recent convention in 
New York City steps were taken to modify the 
form of the present day waltz on the ground of its 
present tendency towards that which is impure. 
What the dancing masters themselves acknowledge 
to be dangerous to pure thought and social pro¬ 
priety it remains for professed Christian women of 
the church to defend as a perfectly innocent and 
harmless amusement. Has it come to this 1 

Second. I can prove it out of my own experience. 
I have God to thank for a heaven sent conscience 
on social purity even before I became a Christian, 
but since a young man of 18 I have known the 
Christ and I have had not only anew inspiration 
but a new strength in trying to fulfill the command, 
“Keep thyself pure. ,, I would not think or do a 
thing of shame, not because of its effect upon my¬ 
self, either mentally or physically or socially, but 
because I know it hurts the heart of my Father in 
heaven who has been so good and kind to me. And 
yet I know myself as you know yourself, and I say 
it without shame that the struggle of my life has 
been just along the line we have been discussing. 
And I have thought, if a young man who had the 
inspiration of a Christian ideal, who knew his 
Christ and had His help and His strength to keep 
his mind and heart, if he could not give himself 

37 



THE CHRISTIAN 


without harm to these things, what shall be said of 
the young man who has no such inspiration and 
who does not know the Christ and is a stranger to 
His help and strength even though he cares to be 
pure, to say nothing about those who are not so 
concerned. 

Third. I can prove it out of the experience of 
others. First, on the testimony of young men. In 
a western town of some eight thousand population 
entirely given up to the amusements of this world 
a number of the young women came to me during 
the revival and asked me about these things and 
especially about the dance. They said they saw 
no harm in it and I replied, “Possibly not to you, 
although there may be, but what about the young 
men?” “ Oh,” they said, “we dance with only the 
nicest young men of the town.” And I said, “ Who 
are they,” and they said, “Harry C. and George R.” 
and went on to name quite a number of the most 
splendid young men of the place. Later during 
my stay I talked with these very same young men. 
A few of them were inclined to argue a little at first 
while others were quicker to confess, but every one 
of those young men without an exception confessed 
to me in confidence, for I had become their friend, 
that although they might have gone through the 
evening’s dance without harm at the time, yet when 
they went back to their homes and laid themselves 
down on their beds and lived the night with its 
scenes and its seductions all through again in the 
38 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


mind there came to them, because of it, thoughts 
and imaginations which no pure-minded, chaste- 
hearted young man should ever indulge. In an¬ 
other city recently I was asked by the young 
men themselves for a confidential talk. About 
thirty of the best young men were there—high 
school and business college students, clerks and 
others. I talked to them of the impure thoughts 
begotten by the dance and of what these thoughts 
sometimes led to and I said “Now, fellows, I’ve 
tried to be frank with you and I want you to be just 
as frank and confidential with me; has this been 
true of you? ” and the hand oj every young man in 
the room went up. Now if these young men know 
their own life and experience as they certainly must, 
then, young women, for their sakes, for the sake of 
the virtue and character of young men in general 
who are more strongly and bitterly tempted in cer¬ 
tain directions than you are apt to be, you ought, if 
you are a pure woman, much more a Christian, to 
think very carefully before you give yourself to an 
indulgence with them that encourages the things we 
have mentioned, even though there could be no 
possible harm to yourselves. You surely do not 
mean to say that you are in no wise responsible 
for the virtue of the young men! If you do, in 
heaven’s name, let me ask you “What is your idea 
of a Christian, anyhow?” 

You say, as a young woman, there is no harm 
to you; I am not so sure of this. I do not care to 

39 



THE CHRISTIAN 


argue the matter with you, but it is hard to see how 
young women can engage in any indulgence with¬ 
out the slightest possibility of danger to them, when 
it does for young men who give themselves to it 
that which we have just seen to be true. 

Secondly, the testimony of the young women of 
the world proves the position we have taken and 
emphatically denies the supposition that there is 
no harm in this indulgence for them. Many a poor 
lost girl has been heard to cry in bitter anguish, 
“Would to God I had never entered a dancing 
school! ” 

Prof. T. A. Faulkner, an ex-dancing master of 
the Los Angeles Academy said of 200 abandoned 
women with whom he talked personally that while 
37 ascribed their fall to various other causes, 163 
of them ascribed it to the dancing school and ball¬ 
room. The police statistics of this and other 
countries tell the same sad story. I could simply 
appall you with what I myself know to be true. 

Again, the Roman Catholic Confessional reveals 
some strong evidence just at this point. A Catholic 
priest in defending the Confessional had come just 
to this point when he said, “Another argument for 
the Confessional is that we at least have the advan¬ 
tage of knowing when our people fall, where they 
fall and how they fall; and we have found that 
almost every lapse of female virtue in our com¬ 
munity is traceable to the round dance.” A noted 
Catholic Archbishop, no other than Archbishop 


40 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


Spaulding, of New York, said recently that this 
was true of 19 out of every 20. 

You say you don’t believe it. Listen. The facts 
are all open to investigation and certainly no one 
with a true heart would think of denying them with¬ 
out investigating for themselves. 

You may repeat again, young woman, that it 
never has and never can do you any harm, and I 
repeat again that I will not argue the question with 
you, but I do ask, altogether apart from your Chris¬ 
tian profession, altogether apart from what would 
be pleasing to Him who pleased not Himself, I do 
ask, Have you no womanly interest in woman-kind? 

And now, because all these things are true, for 
you must bear me witness that this address has not 
been an abuse but a plain recital of fact,—be¬ 
cause these things are true, could any one be aston¬ 
ished if it should be said that this form of indul¬ 
gence is inconsistent with the Christian’s vow, that 
solemn vow which says, “Renouncing the world, 
the flesh and the Devil, I take God the Father to 
be my Father, Jesus the Christ to be my Saviour 
and the Holy Spirit to be my Sanctifier. I take 
the word of God to be my rule of faith and practice, 
and the people of God to be my people; and I give 
myself, soul and body, time and talents, powers and 
possessions to the service of the Lord. I do this 
intelligently, deliberately, sincerely, unreservedly, 
freely and forever.” Could any thing be more 
solemn? And because the Christian’s vow is what 


41 



THE CHRISTIAN 


it is and the dance is what it is could any one be 
surprised to hear that the dance is forbidden by the 
church? 

If any one therefore should ask me to give a 
single reason why a church member should not 
dance, I would simply say, “Because your church 
is against it and says you must not.” But you say, 
“Do all churches take this stand?” Yes, all of 
them! The majority of them through their official 
utterances, while in the few which are independent 
in government and consequently have no such 
official deliverances, you will find the attitude of its 
leaders quite as pronounced against this indulgence 
as that of the others. 

Let us begin with the Roman Catholic, the oldest 
of all. Assembled in Plenary Council at Baltimore 
the Archbishops put their church on record in the 
following words: 

“In this connection we consider it to be our duty 
to warn our people against those amusements which 
may easily become to them an occasion of sin, 
against those fashionable dances which, as at 
present carried on, are revolting to every feeling 
of delicacy and propriety and are fraught with the 
greatest danger to morals.” 

Take the Episcopalian church which is so often 
charged with being lax concerning this question, 
but this is true only as it is true of other churches 
where they are not deeply concerned about bring¬ 
ing the lost to Jesus. But listen! Bishop Hopkins 


42 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


of that church had this to say, “Dancing is charge¬ 
able with waste of time, the indulgence of personal 
vanity, and the premature incitement of the pas¬ 
sions, and no ingenuity can make it consistent with 
the covenant of Baptism.” Bishop Meade of 
Virginia and Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio have said 
the same thing, while Bishop Coxe whose name 
has become a household word in the Episcopalian 
church says the dance is lascivious and warns those 
who persist in it “that they presume not to come to 
the holy table.” 

The Baptist church in her Associations is un¬ 
sparing in her denunciation of this indulgence. 

The General Association of the Congregational 
Church in the State of Iowa passed the following 
resolution but a few years ago, “Resolved: that in 
the opinion of this association the practice of dan¬ 
cing by members of our churches is inconsistent 
with the profession of religion and ought to be made 
a subject of discipline.” 

While leaving the matter of discipline to each 
church the Presbyterian denomination in its general 
Assembly has said, “We regard the practice of 
promiscuous social dancing by church members 
as a mournful inconsistency, and the giving of such 
parties for such dancing, on the part of the heads of 
families, as tending to compromise their religious 
profession; and the sending of children by Chris¬ 
tian parents to the dancing school as a sad error in 
family discipline.” 


43 




THE CHRISTIAN 


Among their other deliverances you will find 
words like the following; words that ought to cut 
to the quick the conscience of every guilty member 
of that church. After speaking of the fashionable 
amusements of the world, and mentioning especially 
dancing, it is said of the professing Christian who 
indulges in it, that he “furnishes satisfactory evi¬ 
dence that he has not yet put off concerning the 
former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt, 
according to the deceitful lusts, nor put on the new 
man, which after God is created in righteousness 
and true holiness,” and that “He thus brings dis¬ 
honor and reproach upon his religious profession, 
throws a stumbling block in the way of sinners, 
offends them that are weak, and grieviously wounds 
the Saviour in the house of His friends.” 

The Church of Christ, the Disciple Church, is as 
pronounced as any. One of its recognized author¬ 
ities has said, “Dancing is offensive, not to the 
ignorant, prejudiced and weak people, but to the 
best informed, the most pious and devout. If there 
were nothing else against it, that would stamp it 
with the seal of condemnation.” 

In the Methodist book of Discipline, paragraph 
248, under the head of “Imprudent and Unchris¬ 
tian Conduct,” we find that mention is made of 
attending dancing parties, patronizing dancing 
schools, and it is there stated that private reproof 
shall first be given by the Pastor or Leader, but 
that upon a second offense the Pastor or Leader 


44 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


shall take with him one or two discreet members 
of the church; while upon a third offense; if there 
be no sign of real humiliation the guilty one shall 
be expelled. 

Well, you say, “I don’t care what my church 
says; I’m going to do this thing anyhow.” And is 
this your idea of a true church member and a con* 
sistent Christian! You, who stood at the sacred 
altar and before God, before the saints of earth 
and high heaven made your vow not only to re¬ 
nounce the world but to be obedient to the will of 
your church! Is it possible that you perjured your 
soul or has it come to this, that you no longer care! 

But we are not quite done. We have gathered 
testimony from every quarter but one. Let us not 
forget the Word of our God. 

It does seem from all that we have seen to be true 
that some of these things, at least the dance, are as 
Bishop Meade has said, “unclean and wrong in 
themselves,” but for fear there may be some who 
even yet will not admit so much, I want to ask how 
many of you are at least willing to admit in the light 
of all that has been said that those things are at 
least questionable. (An almost unanimous show 
of hands.) Very well then. A Christian will cer¬ 
tainly listen to God’s Word, if not to any of the 
other authorities I have quoted. Let us then see 
what God’s word says about questionable things. 
It says in plain and unmistakable language that 
for the Christian they are wrong. 

45 



THE CHRISTIAN 


Paul in speaking of questionable things says in 
i Cor. 6:12, “All things are lawful unto me, but 
all things are not expedient,” and in telling us why 
things which are inexpedient just because they 
are questionable, are wrong for the Christian, he 
makes himself very plain; indeed, so plain that 
no one who wants the truth can miss it. He 
explains it first from the standpoint of a man’s 
God, then from the standpoint of a man’s neigh¬ 
bor and then from the standpoint of the man 
himself. 

First. As concerns God. He says they are wrong 
because of the danger of misrepresenting Him. 
By doing these things we sanction a lower tone of 
Christianity than his approval warrants. In 1 Cor. 
10:31, Paul says, “Whether ye eat or drink or 
whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.” If 
fou can conscientiously kneel down and ask God 
to go with you, it may be right for you to go, if no 
other question is involved, but unless in that thing 
to which you give your self the Holy Spirit can 
glorify Jesus it is wrong for you to indulge. In any 
undertaking I should first want to know, “Will 
this please God.” 

Calling upon one of his parishioners, a certain 
pastor inquired concerning the daughter who was 
away at college, and the mother said, “I was just 
reading a letter from her as you came in; part of it 
will interest you.” And she read a part of the 
letter where the daughter was telling the mother of 
46 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


a dance that was to be given by her class; most of 
her friends were going and she wanted to go herself 
very much indeed, but she knew her mother did 
not approve of it and for her sake she was going to 
stay away. “Well,” remarked the pastor, “that’s 
very beautiful of her indeed; you must love her 
very much.” “Love her!” replied the mother, as 
a tear came into her eye, “I wish she were here now, 
that I might put my arms around her and tell her 
how much I love her.” In some such way as that 
I would like God to feel toward me, and I am sure 
He will if I am trying in all things to walk “worthy 
of the Lord unto all pleasing.” 

Second. Then Paul states the question from 
the standpoint of the man’s neighbor. In i Cor. 
8:9 he says such things ought not to be done 
“lest by any means my liberty become a stumbling 
block to them that are weak.” We all know what 
that means, and in 1 Cor. 8:13 he says, “If 
meat makes my brother to offend I will eat no meat 
while the world stands.” Although I might en¬ 
gage in this thing without any harm to myself, I 
am furnishing by my example what others take as 
their justification for doing it, but who are not so 
discerning or self-controlled as I, and while I may 
be spared, they may be injured and fall and set 
their feet in the way that leads to ruin. 

Two little boys, one leading his smaller sister 
were going through the woods. They came to a 
tree that had fallen across the creek and formed a 


47 



THE CHRISTIAN 


natural bridge. The first little fellow bounded 
over and turning said “Come on, it’s easy.” But 
the other gripped his little sister’s hand a little 
tighter and shrank back, saying “I could, but she 
might fall.” And I say to you, that that little 
fellow had more of the Spirit of Jesus Christ in him 
than many members of many churches who will 
not deny themselves some pet indulgence for the 
sake of some one weaker than themselves. 

Third. And then Paul states the matter from 
the standpoint of the man himself. 

(a) In i Cor. 6:12, he says such things are 
inexpedient, “lest I be brought under their power.” 
If these things or any other things have taken such 
strong hold upon you as to cause you to prefer them 
to the approval of God or the honor of Christ; if 
you are at the place where many a young member 
of the church, has been when they have said “If 
these things are inconsistent with my being a mem¬ 
ber of the church, I shall cling to them neverthe¬ 
less,” then for you these things are an evil in your 
life. 

(b) And in 1 Cor. 10:23 he says they are 
inexpedient “because they do not edify.” They 
hinder growth and fill the church with barren fruit¬ 
less lives. A prominent Christian worker once 
said, “I never knew a Christian that began to dance 
who was not soon missed from the prayermeeting.” 
Having loved this present world Demas-like they 
soon forsake the things of God. It seems there is 

48 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


an incompatibility between the two which experi¬ 
ence proves will not abide each other. 

And then say what we will, the lovely characters 
of this world, in whose lives the very beauty and 
gentleness of Jesus have shone with resplendent 
glory, have not been those whose chief sources of 
amusement were found in the giddy, venturesome 
whirl of a Christ ignoring world. 

Fourth. And then as if our duty concerning 
such matters might not in some particular instance 
be sufficiently clear, even with such guiding prin¬ 
ciples before us, Paul in Romans 14:23 sets forth 
a simple rule that will always point a man to the 
right side if he has the least desire to do the will of 
God. He says, “If there is any question about it, 
don’t do it.” “Whatever is not faith,” he says, 
that is, whatever is not without doubt, without 
question, “is sin” and “he that doubteth,” says 
Paul, “is condemned if he does it.” 

And now what more could man or God say to 
any one who is honestly seeking the best and highest 
and purest things of life. Listen to this true story 
and we will leave you with God to settle this ques¬ 
tion, if you have not already done it in the deep 
place of your own soul. 

In one of our eastern cities there is living a very 
happy couple to-day. On the fourth anniversary 
of their wedding the young wife said to the hus¬ 
band, “Dick, I have been a very happy woman for 
four years, but if only one thing else could be true 

49 



THE CHRISTIAN 


I would be the happiest women in the world.” 
“Well, Mollie,” he said, “What is it? I would do 
anything for you.” “Dick,” she replied, “If you 
were only a Christian.” “Well, Mollie, are you a 
Christian,” said the young husband. “Yes, Dick,” 
came the answer. “Well, Mollie,” said he, “I 
didn’t know it.” Dick waited a while and then 
said, “See here, Mollie, I want to do what is right; 
you don’t swear, do you?” “Why, no,” said 
Mollie. “Well,” said Dick,“I don’t either. Mollie,” 
he said,“you don’t steal do you?” “Why, no, Dick, 
of course I don’t.” “Well,” he replied, “I don’t 
either.” “Mollie, you don’t gamble, do you?” 
“Why, no, what do you mean, Dick, of course 
I don’t.” “Well,” said Dick, “I don’t either.” 
“Mollie,” he said, “you don’t get drunk, do you?” 
“Why, Dick! why do you ask such questions of 
me? Of course I don’t get drunk.” “Well,” said 
Dick, “I don’t either.” “Now Mollie,” he said, 
“you drink wine at the receptions don’t you?” 
“Oh, yes,’’said Mollie, “I do that out of courtesy 
to the hostess.” “Well,” said Dick, “I do too.” 
“Mollie,” he said, “you go to the theater, don’t 
you?” “Why, certainly,” she replied, “I go quite 
often.” “Well,” said Dick, “I do too.” “Mollie,” 
he said, “You play cards, don’t you?” “Why, 
yes, Dick, where’s the harm in that? I play 
cards, of course.” “Well,” replied Dick, “I do 
too.” “Mollie,” he said, “you dance don’t you?” 
“Certainly,” she said, “there’s no harm in dan- 

50 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


ring; I love it; I dance, of course I do.” “Well,” 
said Dick, “I do too.” “Now Mollie,” said he, 
“if you’ll show me the difference between the kind 
of life that you are living and the kind I am living 
I have no objection to my becoming a Christian.” 

Now I don’t suppose there is any one in this 
audience who is little enough to get mad at the 
truth, are you? Of course if you are that little, 
you’ll just have to get mad; that’s ail. But you 
say, “Mr. Biederwolf, be very sure you speak the 
truth,” and I will. If ever I spoke or shall speak 
the truth under God’s heaven, I will speak it now. 
It is not a matter of practice but a matter of prin¬ 
ciple. It is not a question about eating meat on 
Friday, or playing golf on Sunday, or taking a car¬ 
riage ride on Tuesday, or going to a dance or else¬ 
where at any other time; it is not a matter of 
practice at all, but of principle of which I speak. 
And here is the truth. My dear Christian wife, if 
the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t make 
any difference between the life you are living and 
the life your unconverted husband is living, it isn’t 
worth recommending to him. Now, you couldn’t 
get mad at that if you’d try, and so I’m going to say 
it again. My dear Christian sister, if the religion 
of the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t make any differ¬ 
ence between the kind of life you are living and 
the kind of life your unconverted brother is living it 
isn’t worth having as a means of saving and puri¬ 
fying the soul. 



THE CHRISTIAN 


Now Mollie saw this, just as you see it. Dick 
started down towm and a few blocks away returned 
for something he had forgotten and found his wife 
on her knees by the couch, her face buried in her 
hands and she was weeping He lifted her up and 
asked her to forgive him if he had hurt her feel¬ 
ings, but she put her arms around his neck and 
kissed him and said, “No, Dick, it is I who ought 
to ask your forgiveness, and with God’s help you 
shall have a different wife from this time on.” Just 
fourteen months after that time, Dick, a splendid 
young man who has since occupied positions of 
honor because of his sterling worth, stood up in a 
large religious gathering and said, “For four months 
I have been a Christian man, won to God by the 
earnest, consistent, beautiful Christian life of my 
devoted wife.” 


prater 

O my God, smite to-night our selfishness and 
our sin. If we have been in anybody’s way, for¬ 
give us and give us some worthy conception of what 
it means to be a child of Thine. Give us to know 
something of the expulsive power of a real affection 
for Jesus in the heart until the unworthy and the 
indelicate and the suggestive shall have no more 
place and He who loved us and gave Himself for 
us shall be all in all. If either word or thought has 
been amiss in what we have tried to speak in wis¬ 
dom and in love, do Thou, O Holy Spirit, correct 
52 



AND AMUSEMENTS 


any impression that may not do honor to our God 
and leave the message for these young hearts 
especially, for whom the self-denial may be hard, 
as a guidepost on the path of the best and highest 
and purest to which the grace of God can lead. 
Amen. 


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